About The Writers

Monday, September 3, 2012

Your Perfect Circle

Post by Jenny

Happy Labor Day, the holiday
which celebrates the American worker with a day off courtesy of Uncle Sam. Unfortunately,
not everyone can take advantage. The holiday was first proposed in 1882, before
convenience stores, all-night diners, and fully-staffed Emergency Rooms. If you
are spending your Labor Day laboring, you have my thanks. Every person who works
nights, weekends, and holidays certainly makes life easier for the rest of us.

According to the U.S.
Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey, the average American
will spend 1.37 hours today (being a weekend/holiday) eating and drinking, 2.12
hours doing household activities, and 10.08 hours engaged in personal care
activities. (That last one sounded impossible to me—how much tooth brushing
would that require?—until I read that it includes time spent sleeping.)

A recent post on the NPR
Planet Money blog entitled “What
Americans Actually Do All Day Long, In 2 Graphics” gives a great visual of these
statistics. The first graphic shows colored circles, representing average time
spent, arranged in decreasing size along a graceful curve. The largest of the
circles is Working and Commuting (9 hours, 12 minutes, 36 seconds). The
smallest is Talking to People on the Phone, Etc. (5 minutes, 24 seconds). The
second graphic breaks down two of the categories into smaller subcategories.
Leisure, for example, predictably includes reading, playing sports, and
watching TV.

This got me thinking: if I
were to do this with my average day, what would my personal graphic look like? In particular, how big would my writing-time circle be? Less than sleeping (7 hours, 39
minutes) but hopefully more than leisure (2 hours, 52 minutes, 48 seconds).
Though on some days, I’d be lucky to beat the 9 minutes of time spent doing the
mysterious “Other.” And how would my
writing time break down? Into writing, sure, but also reading, researching,
blogging, querying. To be honest, it would also have to include trips
to the kitchen for something crunchy, spinning in my chair, and talking to my
dog. (Who, by the way, spends approximately 21 hours a day sleeping)

Whatever you’re doing
today, I hope your writing circle is as big as you want it to be.